


dayeinu

by mrsenjolras



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Pesach | Passover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 13:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18639388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsenjolras/pseuds/mrsenjolras
Summary: Ilu hotzi hotzianu, hotzianu mimitzrayim, hotzianu mimitzrayim, dayeinu...Or: Bucky Barnes celebrates Passover.





	dayeinu

**Author's Note:**

> hello! chag sameach! i know passover is over now but i saw endgame the other night and needed to get this out there. this is..not really consistent with mcu but let's say it's in some time post ca:tws but in a world where all the avengers always get along ok cool. 
> 
> bucky is ashkenazi jewish in this, and as he lived in brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century i assumed his family would have just immigrated and as such he would have fluent yiddish. all words referring to jewish custom or tradition are in yiddish rather than hebrew (except prayers). if you have questions about what any of these words mean, message me!

A week before Pesach begins, Steve makes a comment about throwing out all the bread in the tower. Some of the others make inquisitive noises, but Bucky just snorts from the corner he’s sitting in, half listening and half reading his book. 

“That’s not necessary, Rogers,” he says. “Just one kosher kitchen would suffice.” 

“Kosher?” Sam asks. 

“Passover starts next week,” Nat answers, and looks of understanding dawn on a few others in the room. Wanda smiles at him from her spot on the couch. Later, she approaches him and sits on the arm of his chair. 

“Would you like to go buy food with me later?” she asks quietly. Bucky nods, smiling. He knows Steve would’ve gone with him, or maybe Natasha, but it’s different with Wanda. She gets it. They’d celebrated shabbos together a few times, and Wanda had tagged along with him to shul for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s good, he thinks, to share this with someone who really understands. 

*

Hydra made Bucky forget a lot of things. They’d tested on him for a lot of reasons, but the “H” on his dog-tags made it even easier for them, he thinks. They’d already seen him as less than human, long before they turned him into a machine. There were a few things he’d held on to--the sounds of children shouting in the streets of Brooklyn; a pair of blue eyes that he’d never thought he’d see again; the feeling of a yarmulke on his hair and a tallis over his shoulders. For a while he was numb to the memories, before he realized what they truly meant. When he’d focused in on them, more and more came. 

Candles flickering in a cracked window. The smell of his mother’s soup boiling on the stove, the sight of her hands carefully rolling matzo meal and egg mixture into balls. And a song, one that he held close even on his lowest days. _Dayeinu_. 

It would have been enough. They would sing it every year on Pesach, and he remembers laughing with his sisters, tripping over the fast-paced Hebrew. _If He had only brought us out of Egypt, it would have been enough_. If He had done nothing else, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. 

He’d thought about the song a lot during the war, and even more after when he remembered it. It was always joyous, alway fun. Pesach had been his favorite holiday as a kid, even if the matzo tasted like cardboard and he craved the bread that Steve could eat like nothing else. He’d wondered, though, if Dayeinu was really true. 

How could it have been enough to be freed from Egypt, when they were put in camps? How could it have been enough to free people from the camps, when Bucky was enslaved for seventy more years? 

He’d asked a rabbi about it, once, after he’d remembered and he was trying to put himself back together in Budapest. The day before the first seder, he approached the rabbi and asked him about it, about how they could say those words if so many terrible things were still happening in the world. How could it ever be enough? 

The rabbi sat quiet for a long while. Eventually, he leaned forward and said, “I see your point. But I believe that when we say those words, we are recognizing that God never had to do those things for us. But he still did. And He brought us out of the camps. He helped you out of your suffering. And He will continue to help. Not just Him, either, but all of us. We will all help each other, help the world, as we have been helped. And that will be enough.”

Bucky liked that answer. He sang with them at their seder that night, loudly and joyously. He’s still sad that he was never able to properly say goodbye to the community there, not with the rushed way things ended in Budapest. 

*

On Friday, he and Wanda go to a seder hosted by one of the families in his shul. Steve had offered to tag along, Sam too, but Bucky knew that it was important to be around other Jews on the first night. To be around his people, as they celebrate their liberation. 

Most of the people at his shul are around his age--his _real_ age, that is, meaning they’re always willing to listen to Sinatra and commiserate about the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. It makes Wanda laugh, when she comes along with him, teasing him about being a grandpa, but Bucky likes it. These are the people who know him and understand him. Steve does, too, but he’s a Catholic boy through and through, and despite his best efforts he’ll never know this part of Bucky. 

The seder is perfect. Ruth can cook up a storm, and she’s been preparing for Pesach for weeks. Her grandkids come in from out of state, and they sing Ma Nishtana like it’s the performance of their lives. Bucky remembers the feeling fondly. 

When they recite the plagues, Bucky carefully dips a finger of his metal hand into his wine, letting the drops fall neatly onto his plate. He thinks about the pain and the blood that this hand has caused, and as he watches the drops fall he thinks of them as cleansing. As they all remembered the plagues in Egypt, Bucky thought of the things that plague him still. He wipes his eyes subtly before they move on to the next section of the seder. 

It’s a good night, one with good food and shitty kosher wine that everyone drinks like water. Bucky and Wanda leave late in the night, laden with leftovers and smiling widely. They don’t speak much on the walk back, but when they’re back in the tower she squeezes his shoulder gently and gives him a soft smile and nod before she goes to her apartment. 

*

The next night, Bucky and Wanda make a seder for the Avengers. It’s a farce compared to the one they’d had the night before, given that none of the other Avengers really understand Judaism at all. They’re all very earnest about it, and ask questions at the right time. Sam listens carefully as Bucky reads out the plagues, and Bruce cheers triumphantly when he finds the afikomen at the end of the meal. 

They sing Dayeinu--well, Bucky and Wanda sing while the others mostly mumble along until they get to the chorus--and Bucky sings loud and long, thinking that it’s just enough that he has this. 

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about jewish bucky barnes [here](http://foliealou.tumblr.com/)


End file.
